Ghost chilli | Unbeaten sport | Six Indian seasons | First girl director | Jallianwala survivor poet
Five unique things from India to explore this week
Ghost Chillies: Licensed to kill
In Northeastern India, you can find a ghost that can kill you.No. We are not talking about the ghosts and ghouls of lore. We are talking about the ghost pepper or the “Bhut Jolokia”. Sure, they have the word “bhut” or ghost in their name but these peppers are certainly real and definitely spicy. Scoring over 1 Million Scoville Heat units on the Scoville scale, this chilly is one of the spiciest chilli pepper in the world! Ingesting a lot of it might just kill you!
A World Cup that India has never lost
Cricket might be the game that motivates the Indian masses, but Kabaddi is what India has shown dominance over every single time! In fact, India has won every single Kabaddi World Cup ever held. For comparison, 31 nations play Kabaddi and 12 currently play in the World Cup. If the World Cup does happen in 2020, it will be interesting to see if we defend our title! If we do, we truly are the champions! More on India’s best game here.
Six Indian Seasons
Among India’s many unique peculiarities are its seasons. They do not follow the typical format used by other countries. For starters, we have a whole season dedicated just to rain. In fact, there are six seasons instead of four in India. Vasant (Spring), Grishma (Summer), Varsha (Monsoon) which is currently ongoing, Sharad (Autumn), Hemant (Pre-Winter), and finally Shishir/Shita (Winter) are the six Ritus or seasons found uniformly in several different ancient calendars in India. We’ve all probably heard of them in school but here’s a quick revision if you need it!
India’s first female director
Born in 1892, Fatma Begum was India’s first female director. At a time when even female roles were often played by men, this pioneer, managed to make a mark for herself by directing the movie Bulbul-e-Paristan and writing for, and acting in many more Indian movies. A true feminist icon, Fatma Begum went on to make other films such as Goddess of Luck. She would also use fantasy, trick photography and special effects in her films. Unfortunately hardly any copies of her work still exist. Nevertheless, we salute this trailblazer!
Nanak Singh: Jallianwala Bagh’s survivor poet
An oft forgotten Indian poet, Nanak Singh, has his birth Anniversary on 4th of July, this week. He had survived the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 and wrote the poem, “Khooni Vaisakhi” about it. A truly heartrending version of this poem, put to music can be found here. A dark day in the Indian Freedom movement, has been beautifully illustrated by this poet through his sorrowful ode to the lives lost.